William Shawcross

William Hartley Hume Shawcross, CVO (born 28 May 1946, Sussex, England) is the Chairman of the Charity Commission for England and Wales, and a British writer and commentator.

Shawcross was educated at St Aubyns Preparatory School, Rottingdean, Eton College and University College, Oxford. He attended St Martin's Art School to study sculpture after leaving Oxford. He worked as a journalist for The Sunday Times. He writes and lectures on issues of international policy, geopolitics, Southeast Asia and refugees for a number of publications, including Time, Newsweek, International Herald Tribune, The Spectator, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone. He has also written a number of books, including biographies of Rupert Murdoch and the Shah of Iran. His official biography of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was released in the UK on 17 September 2009 and in the United States on 20 October 2009.

Shawcross was Chairman of ARTICLE 19, the international centre on censorship, from 1986 to 1996. He was a Member of Council of the Disasters Emergency Committee from 1997 to 2002, and a board member of the International Crisis Group from 1995 to 2005.